8 ancient teeth point to earliest human species

The discovery of eight ancient teeth in a cave east of Tel Aviv that was used thousands of years ago might point to the oldest human ancestors, a study has found.

The discovery of eight ancient teeth in a cave east of Tel Aviv that was used thousands of years ago might point to the oldest human ancestors, a study has found.

The teeth are older than most of the hominid specimens previously found in southwestern Asia, say researchers from Tel Aviv University in Israel. They used advanced imagining technology, comparative analysis and an examination of the earth and debris around the fossils to date them to 300,000 to 400,000 years ago.

While the features aren't a direct match to Neanderthals or early modern humans, they have a "stronger affinity" to Homo sapiens, the investigators said in a report in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. One possibility is that the teeth belong to an ancient, direct ancestor of early humans that developed independently of others in Africa and Europe, said Rolf M. Quam, a professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Binghamton.

"This region of the world has been a crossroads for human population movements for a very long period of time and is situated just outside of Africa and just outside of Europe," said Quam, one of the study's researchers.

Alternately, the finding might reflect a local evolution of Neanderthals in southwestern Asia, showing that they were there earlier than previously believed, or that more than one species - one earlier in time, and one later - occupied that area, Quam said.

"It is possible the older teeth represent one species and the younger teeth represent a different species, since we know that different human species were occupying Africa and Europe at this time," Quam said in an e-mail. "With such fragmentary evidence as eight isolated teeth, it is difficult to offer a clear answer."